sirenspull_logs | All the blood lying on the floor. Sense the crowd expecting something more.

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All the blood lying on the floor. Sense the crowd expecting something more.

Who: Jesse Pinkman and Gustavo Fring
When: immediately following this
Where: Tower Apartments
Summary: Jesse and Gus reminisce about the good old days, once upon a time in Mexico.
Warnings: Season 4 spoilers and graphic descriptions likely.

Knowing that Gus was probably just as wary of him, Jesse kept a respectful distance and made no sudden moves. Sure, Mike wasn't around to keep an eye on him in this place, but he might as well have been. Jesse still followed the way Mike had trained him, like any of Gus's men would. In fact, he settled back into the role so easily that it made him uncomfortable. He had to keep reminding himself, as he walked, that Gus was his enemy. Gus wanted to kill him and Mr. White. Gus poisoned Brock... in the future. (Did he, though? Why?)

When they reached the door, Jesse hesitated for a second. There was a huge possibility that Gus had only been looking for a private place to cut his throat. Jesse would come back, at least - and then he'd know for certain where they stood. But he was afraid, anyway. He looked to Gus, searching his face for any possible hints though he really should have known better than to think he'd find anything there.

Still... He wanted reassurance.

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"I fired him. Just fired," he added immediately, before Jesse could ask exactly what kind he meant. "I told him our business was concluded and that he was not to contact me again -- or you, on your express wishes. And that was that, as far as I was concerned."

Now, Gus paused again, and now it was his turn to think. Jesse had definitely known about the boy, there was no question of that. Which meant Walter had to have told him, with the same lie in place.

Which also meant, he supposed, he really had no choice but to mention Schrader. "We had a disagreement about his brother-in-law," he admitted cautiously. "Who was, you may recall, becoming an increasing threat at the time."

Hank Schrader. There was somebody that Jesse had trouble mustering up concern for. As much as he hated that pig, though, Jesse no longer wished him dead. Maybe enough time had passed between now and when Hank had stormed into his house and beaten him into a bloody pulp. And Jesse couldn't help but worry about what that would do to Mr. White. His family meant everything to him.

In Gus's terms, though, a disagreement meant that Gus had wanted the guy dead and that Walt had objected. Then Gus fired him and Jesse took over the lab? Walt had mentioned neither of these incidents.

Jesse sat back slowly. From the troubled look in his eyes, this was all clearly news to him. Walt had made him believe that when he returned from Mexico, they were still partners. But they weren't. They were rivals. Jesse running the lab meant Jesse was a threat. If not to Mr. White directly, then to his family. Because that was Heisenberg's leverage: when he was the only cook.

"Like I said," Jesse uttered, interrupting his own train of thought because he didn't want to reach that destination, "Mr. White's outta the business now. So we're all good."

"You fear for him," Gus observed with uncharacteristic bluntness, allowing himself freedom of expression: he raised a brow sardonically. "Yet I think I am the one who has more reason to fear for my safety. In a new world, without my family, my business, my resources..."

Leaving aside, for the moment, that common household items were easily enough resources in his hands. He sat back, face all but disappearing into the backlit gloom. "What did Walter tell you about the future, Jesse?"

Jesse's gaze snapped back to Gus. "Nothing," he answered half-honestly. Close enough to nothing, anyway. Plus Jesse was doubting the few details Walt had even shared with him - none of which he could speak to Gus about, given that they all revolved around the conspiracy to murder him.

Gus was right. Jesse was afraid for Mr. White, even here. Even knowing that Gus was without his resources and everything. But the same went in reverse, too. Jesse was afraid for Gus. Because maybe they had actually succeeded in killing him. And Jesse had never been okay with that, not since the second he heard about it. And, on top of it all, Mr. White was powerful now. Gus could turn any household item into a weapon. Walt could chemically disassemble them. Both Gus and Jesse, if it was true that they became rivals in the future. If this turned into war again, then it would be bloodier than they ever could have imagined back home.

"All he said was I made it back from Mexico. That you brought me back. And that's it. I mean, we don't even really talk anymore, since we're done working together. I've barely seen him in months."

"What else did he tell you?" Gustavo asked -- no pause, this time, and no illusion of gentleness in his voice. His voice came from the shadows, and it was cold and dangerous, full of command. This was the voice that expected orders to be followed.

He had seen the look in Jesse's eyes. He knew he knew about the boy, and about the poison, and about the murder. His murder.

"Tell me. Now. No more lies." This was the voice that said this could go two ways, and Jesse had already seen before what the other one was.

These weren't the days of taking orders from Gus anymore, though. The moment that illusion of courtesy dropped away, Jesse's walls went right back up. He wasn't about to betray Mr. White just because Gus told him to. Maybe his silence would be telling, but that'd mean that Gus already knew, anyway.

It was, perhaps, a misstep, he realized in the face of Jesse's stubborn silence. He'd already refused Gus once, although that been before Victor. And living for six months with only Walter's side of the story, and perhaps the illusion that the mighty Gustavo Fring could be toppled forever...

He relented begrudgingly, forced himself to relax. He had known that, hadn't he? That Jesse required more finesse than he seemed to. "I want you to tell me what you believe you know," he said, not quite gently, but without the immediate promise of death to follow. "About the boy. About me. I was honest with you, was I not?"

He leant forward again, out of the shadows, no sign of weakness on his face despite the fact that Jesse was, well, still breathing. In all honesty, it wouldn't be that difficult to kill him right now. He still could, if he wanted to. This... was a choice Gustavo had made.

Not about to shrink back now, Jesse also hunched forward again. "Yeah, here's the thing about that: I've got no reason to believe either of you's being honest with me. I've got his word against yours. And you know what? I don't even care who's right."

That wasn't true. Jesse cared desperately about whether Walt had deliberately misled him. That, however, was a place he didn't even want to explore. Especially not with Gus.

"It's over. Between all of us, okay? This ain't Albuquerque. This ain't even our planet. None of that matters here. And the guy has, what, maybe three months left to live? And me... I mean, I'm clean -" (A lie.) "- I got a job, a house... If I had my choice, I'd never set foot in New Mexico again. So, uh, I'm just about done here with this little meeting, sir."

There was, Gus thought lovingly, furiously, a syringe in his pocket right now. He could easily jab it into Jesse's neck and be over and done with it before the boy could get another word in edgewise.

The idea was increasingly tempting. He stared at Jesse, his eyes completely black in the dim, and let himself picture it. He could go after Walter next and the man would never even know he was here. A world rid of his two greatest living disappointments; truly, what a tempting idea that was.

But that was no way to begin one's new life. That talk of resources had been important: for example, the resources to kill a man without impunity, and with no fear of the law's intervention, those were necessary resources to have for a man like Gustavo Fring. In Albuquerque, when Hank Schrader wasn't breathing down his neck, Gus had easily enjoyed such freedom. Here? Perhaps not. Yet.

And if Jesse was under the highly mistaken impression after six months away that Gustavo Fring forgave easily, or was so easily brought down -- well, Gus could afford the time it would take to correct that properly. He had waited longer. If Walter White had three months to live, then then he had three months, and that was no time at all. And Jesse Pinkman would go back to being what he should have been from the start: collateral damage.

"This is how you keep the peace," Gustavo said, an almost wry note over the contained anger. "You believe this will protect you. On the day I die and rise again, murdered by you and the man you are still so interested in protecting, you walk into my home and make demands. You lie to my face, openly. You disrespect me. This is how you treat a man."

He stood abruptly, but rather than go near Jesse, he strode to the window, arms folded behind his back. "I'm very disappointed, Jesse," he said in a tone that was somewhere between a growl and a sigh, and believable or not, it was true.

That brought Jesse to his feet as well. "No," he snapped sharply. "Don't you get it? I don't want either of you to die. I don't want anybody to die." He didn't mean for that tremor to hit his voice on that final word, but there it was, turning the statement into a plea.

"I swear I'm not lying. The last time I saw you was Mexico, I swear it. Whatever happened after that - whatever he did or you did - I don't know, okay? 'cause I'm pretty sure you're the only one telling me the truth." And that was a painful admission.

"I am telling you the truth," Gustavo agreed coldly, not turning from the window. There was the diamond, the greeters. Beyond, unknown territory. Not his, but it would be.

"But you are not. You know something of the child who was poisoned. You know what I remember Walter doing to me. How do you know of these things, if he did not tell you? The ringing of a bell, perhaps? Your lawyer's counsel?"

"Yes, okay? Mr. White told me!"

And that clearly wasn't a revelation. Why was Gus trying to draw all this out of Jesse when he already knew?

"He told me about you poisoning Brock and he said that's why I helped him. I mean - what did you expect, huh? Going after our families? I did everything I could to help you! I went down to Mexico thinking I was gonna die there! For you and your stupid war. I was ready to do whatever it took for peace. I would've followed you to the end. And that's how you paid me back."

It was, indeed, exactly as he had expected it would be. He barely turned now, looking at Jesse out of the corner of his eye, his silhouette starkly shadowed against the window.

"Why would I do that?"

"Wh-" There it was again. The ugly core of this entire thing. Jesse had to swerve to avoid it, because he couldn't look at it.

His voice dropped back to its weaker, beseeching tone: "...That's what I wanna know." Any kind of explanation, even if it was only between the lines of whatever Gus had to say for himself. Jesse, on his own, couldn't find a reason for Gus's betrayal.

In a way, Gus had to wonder, himself. Walter must have told Jesse something to make him believe it had been Gus. Jesse was a loyal young man -- one with poor taste and poorer judgment, but loyal -- but surely it must have taken more than a simple, "he did it," mustn't it?

"I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you," he said simply, turning around with hands spread and a shrug. "I had no reason to. Whatever conflict I had with the man, it was between Walter, myself, and Agent Schrader. You had expressed to me you wanted nothing to do with him as long as I left him unharmed, and it was my every intention to maintain that, and leave you well away from it. Running your lab, as it should have been."

"He lied to me."

The suspicion had been there since the moment Walt told him about their future. But Walt had just saved his life, so Jesse pushed it back out of his mind and determined that whatever had happened had been for the best. For both of them. For everyone they loved.

"That's what you're saying. You're saying he lied to me to get me back on his side instead of yours. Because you fired him. Because you gave the lab to me."

But there was more to it than that, too. If the whole story had been a lie, that'd be one thing. But the very first thing that Gus had asked him was how Brock was doing. Which meant that Brock really was in the hospital. He really was poisoned. And although Walt had assured him that Brock survived in the end... If everything was a lie, was that a lie?

"No..." he whispered. Not to Gus. To himself. "No, come on. You can't expect me to believe that."

"I could be lying," Gus said, but there was a note in his even voice that said of course, that wasn't the case. Like he was saying it to make Jesse feel better. "Or I could lie to you now and tell you that I know the truth."

He returned to sit down again, this time on the couch itself, looking up at Jesse. "I don't know what he said to you to make you believe I would do such a thing. Nor do I know what he did while my back was turned to him. Only one man knows the truth to those things." He sighed, almost imperceptibly.

"What I do know is that you stopped coming to work; that you insisted on meeting with me; that you told me the boy was poisoned. This was the first I knew of his illness. I know I was killed soon after... " his mouth turned down, his eyes shining their disappointment, "...in a way that spoke of your involvement. And the next thing I knew, I was here."

"You have been lied to, Jesse," he added quietly. "It is up to you to decide by whom, and what the lie was. I trust you will use your best judgment."

Edited 2012-09-07 04:27 (UTC)

Gus wasn't lying. Jesse knew that in his heart. The only doubts he had now were the ones he was trying feverishly to construct: that some detail had been left out of the story, that everything was a deadly misunderstanding. Otherwise, he was left with the conclusion that Mr. White had - probably fatally - poisoned the boy that Jesse had dreamed of raising as a son and had used that to manipulate Jesse into helping him commit yet another murder.

It was all too much for Jesse, who stood in silence and stared distantly into the air as he worked to keep himself together. Rage should have been what he felt, but instead this revelation had burned a hole right through him. Everything was all laid out for him in a place where he could do absolutely nothing to stop it. He was empty. Useless.

Finally, when he was sure he wouldn't fall apart right there in front of Gus, he murmured, "I'm sorry. For killing you."

Gustavo waited silent and patient while Jesse worked his way through to the obvious conclusion, watching with a sympathetic expression and a sense of cold satisfaction. This was not enough for forgiveness; too little, too late. The anger still smoldered in him, fueled by Jesse's earlier disrespect and the overhanging fog of his betrayal between them. This was not enough... but it was enough for the illusion of forgiveness.

Despite everything that they had been through, the three of them, Gus had meant it when he'd told Mike he didn't believe in fear. Oh, it could be effective -- Victor had proved that -- but there were many things that were moreso.

He made himself soften and nod, leaning forward, hands between his knees. "Men do what they need to for their children," he murmured, as if thinking about it. "No matter the cost. I... I do understand that, Jesse. As well as any other father would."

"That doesn't make it okay."

Even if he believed that Gus was ready to forgive him for it - which he didn't entirely - Jesse still wasn't going to forgive himself. Or Walt. The both of them had done something evil; Jesse out of pain and Walt out of greed, but it didn't matter what their motivations were.

Jesse couldn't quite look at Gus, but he turned slightly more toward him. "I, um," he stammered. "I meant it when I said I didn't want anybody to die. I'll do whatever I can to keep him away from you here." But Jesse wasn't going to beg for either of their lives. Not anymore.

Gus's lips twitched, although what emotion had caused it was unclear. "But which of us are you protecting from the other?" And how? he wondered. The greeter who'd caught him in the parking lot, the blonde woman, she had told him things... some truly fantastic things, in the most original sense of the word. People with abilities unlike anything seen in Albuquerque, even after the Salamanca brothers had come through.

Did Jesse have something new up his sleeve? Did Walter?

Would he?

He sighed wearily, passing a hand over his face. "I cannot afford another war," he admitted. A convenient truth. For now. "Not when there are so many more pressing issues. To rebuild one's entire life from scratch, without even one's family for comfort..."

"If you need help -" Jesse started, then stopped abruptly. He looked at Gus again, finally, with all of his regret written plainly on his face. Gus almost certainly wouldn't want Jesse's help ever again. Still: "It's the least I can do. I have money. I have... other stuff. I could hook you up with a better apartment than this place. Not that... this is so bad or anything. Just -

"I mean, I know I'm the last person you wanna deal with. But all of that stuff hasn't even happened for me yet. I'm still your guy." As much as he had ever been one of Gus's men. No; maybe now more than ever. "I'll do whatever I can."

Oh, good. The attempt at charity was pitiable and mildly infuriating, and Gustavo would pull the trigger himself before taking an apartment that had Walter White's indirect mark on it, but there was also good information forthcoming.

Gus knit his brow, straightening in his seat. "I thought you said you had left the business...?" He'd said Walter had, of course, which was a thing Gus still found immensely difficult to believe. "You're cooking on your own?"

"I was cooking," Jesse replied, "'til he got here." And that's the simplified version of it. Gus can probably guess, of course, how Walt might have reacted to the idea of Jesse using his recipe. Even in this place. Even after everything.

That genuinely was news, albeit news that more or less confirmed some of his suspicions. Gone were the days of paying one for the other's product, in other words. Instead, Jesse had just backed off?

Even for Jesse, it seemed unlikely without another game. But Gus shook his head. "Then I cannot ask... if you have no other income... There are ways these things are done."

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